Boosting Self-Esteem With Affirmations
Written by Jerry on November 3, 2009 – 4:15 am -Boosting Self-Esteem With Affirmations
When you consider that low self-esteem is the result of negative messages being absorbed by the subconscious, it makes sense that feeding your mind more positive messages can make a powerful difference!
What stops most people is not being sure of what to say, and how to word affirmations for optimal results. Below you’ll find some simple tips to help you write effective affirmations for improving your self-esteem.
1) Present tense. First, it’s helpful to word affirmations in present tense, not the future. You wouldn’t want to say, “I will learn to love myself” because that makes it sound like you’ll get around to it “someday.” Instead you could say, “I choose to love myself.” The wording of that affirmation does two things: it empowers you with the addition of the words “choose to,” and it puts the timeframe in the present moment.
2) Believable. At the same time, your affirmations should be believable to you. If you try to say, “I am a wonderful person with a lot to offer the world,” you may not really believe it, so your subconscious mind might reject it. Instead, try to focus on a process rather than an end result in your affirmations. Say something like, “I am learning to embrace my uniqueness and share it confidently with others.” As your confidence builds, your ststements can become more bold.
3) Use the right tone. When you recite affirmations, you can do so aloud or just mentally, but you should focus heavily on the TONE you use. Rather than saying the words without emotion like you were reading a newspaper – really inject an element of love and passion into them. Your subconscious mind picks up on the emotional aspect of what you’re saying more than the actual words. Imagine the difference between saying the words, “I really love myself” with a tone of love and compassion, or of sarcasm. Which do you think would have a greater impact on your subconscious mind?
4) Repetition. Once you’ve got some affirmations formed to work on your self-esteem, try saying them several times a day. Remember, your subconscious mind is constantly playing back old, negative messages – so you want to counteract those as often as possible. Keep reciting your more positive thoughts on a regular basis – especially when you catch yourself thinking negatively about yourself.
5) Give it time. Finally, remember that it will take time to change those old, negative messages in your mind to something more positive. It may take a few weeks or even months before you’ll notice an obvious difference in how you feel, and you may be tempted to think it isn’t working. Keep with it, and you will begin to see a difference eventually! Most likely it will be a gradual change. Little by little you’ll start feeling more positive, and notice that you’re feeling a bit happier and lighter. That’s your signal that it’s working!
6) Remember that you can use this formula for anything you want to change for the better in your life.
Start today, with something small and…
Never Stop Exploring Life!
Jerry L Saunders, RM
Tags: Affirmation, Affirmations, Boosting Self Esteem, Confidence, Element, Emotion, Emotional Aspect, End Result, Improving Your Self Esteem, Low Self Esteem, Nbsp, Negative Messages, Optimal Results, Passion, Positive Messages, Present Moment, Subconscious Mind, Timeframe, Uniqueness, Wonderful Person
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What Is Self Hypnosis? Part 1
Written by Jerry on October 15, 2009 – 8:52 pm -
What Is Self Hypnosis?
There are several types of hypnosis – there is stage hypnosis, which is done in front of an audience for entertainment purposes, there is hypnotherapy, which is done by a hypnotist on a patient in order to help them deal with a problem or to improve themselves, and there is self hypnosis, which allows the patient to, in a way, self treat, and hypnotize themselves to reach their goals.
Self hypnosis for therapy is very different from stage hypnosis, which is form of entertainment and is often not true hypnosis, as volunteers are also feeling pressure to play along.
Self hypnosis is simply presenting new ideas and words to your brain, while in a receptive state, in order to help you achieve a goal or change a habit. This is different from meditation, because you have a specific goal in mind. Brain scans have shown that a person’s brain activity changes when in a hypnotic state.
In hypnosis, people remain fully aware of the world around them and are simply opening their subconscious mind up to become more receptive to a new idea or thought. This thought or "prescription" will stay in the subject’s subconscious mind, making them more likely to reach their goals.
Hypnosis is based on the idea that our conscious mind and our subconscious mind are not always working very well together, and by using hypnosis, we can realign our subconscious thinking with what our conscious mind wants. We can use this to improve ourselves in many ways.
What Can You Use Self Hypnosis For?
Basically anything that can be achieved by changing your attitude or habits can be changed with hypnosis. Common goals include quitting smoking and weight loss; although it can be used to help you do better at work and get better grades at school.
Hypnotherapy also has a variety of uses in helping patients deal with fears or low self esteem.
Here’s a short list of what you might use hypnosis for:
do better at work or school
lowering blood pressure
losing weight
improve your memory and/or concentration
quit smoking
raise your self confidence and self esteem
overcome fears
improve sports performance
learn a foreign language
People commonly use hypnosis as a form of therapy, to achieve their goals or work through their problems or fears, such as the fear of heights or fear of public speaking. While this can be done without hypnosis, hypnosis can make the job easier for you by removing negative thoughts and attitudes.
Hypnosis is also a common method to help people with insomnia. Hypnosis cannot replace sleep; it can only make it easier to fall asleep, and maybe improve the quality of sleep.
Hypnosis helps you to relax and calm your mind and your body into a relaxed alpha state. Then you can allow yourself to drift deeper into a theta sleep state. Since insomnia is a common problem in our fast paced world, learning Self Hypnosis can be a great way to re-educate your mind and body to rest without using drugs that leave you "hung over" and become addictive.
Common Concerns About Self Hypnosis
Many people have scary notions about hypnosis. Hypnosis is often seen as a method of mind control, especially if you have seen a stage hypnotist act or one too many B rated horror movies.
For people who are concerned with somebody else controlling their minds, self hypnosis may be a sound choice, because YOU remain in complete control of everything that happens. For others, it may be easier and more comfortable to choose a professional hypnotherapist, at least, in the beginning to teach you the basics of getting into a receptive state and giving your mind suggestions.
During hypnosis, you will remain completely aware of everything around you. When you leave the hypnotic state, you will remember everything that happened during the session. The exception to this is if you are using Self Hypnosis to fall asleep.
You need to be more receptive, in order for hypnosis to work best.
However, another concern people have is that while they are hypnotized, they are more vulnerable and receptive to negative suggestions. While you are hypnotized, you ARE more receptive to suggestions and to words. However, your conscious mind is still aware of what is going on, so you will not act on a crazy suggestion.
In other words, a hypnotist could not make the Dalai Lama go out and assassinate the president of the US. It just doesn’t work that way.
A common fear is that a person who is self hypnotized will not be able to wake up. But during hypnosis, you are still conscious and aware.
You can simply instruct yourself to wake, and you will. If you are still concerned that you will forget to tell yourself to wake up, you need to remember that even if you don’t tell yourself to wake up when you take a nap, you still do naturally wake up. Also, you will eventually become hungry, thirsty or tired. So even if you could forget to wake yourself up, your body would simply do it for you naturally.
Stay tuned for Part 2 where we’ll cover: How Self Hypnosis works, How to choose effective suggestions, Self Hypnosis compared to hypnosis by another person, a great low cost hypnosis report and a great resource for the absolute best audios you can find to for Self Hypnosis.
Never Stop Exploring Life!
Jerry L Saunders, RM
Tags: Activity Changes, Brain Activity, Brain Scans, Conscious Mind, Entertainment Purposes, Fears, Goal In Mind, Habit, Hypnosis Therapy, Hypnotherapy, Hypnotic State, Hypnotist, Low Self Esteem, Meditation, Quitting Smoking, Receptive State, Self Hypnosis, Stage Hypnosis, Subconscious Mind, Volunteers
Posted in Sculpt Your Mind | No Comments »